Cost of Care Toolkit
.co.uk
Supported Living Cost Toolkit
and Guidance Download
ARCC has granted a multi-user license of the Supported Living Cost Toolkit to Partners in Care and Health (PCH), which aims to help councils and partners obtain a shared understanding of the cost of providing supported living services. The toolkit is open access and can be freely used by councils and providers.
How has this toolkit been developed?
In developing the toolkit, we utilised our extensive experience of working with the sector, including supported living providers and council commissioners, as well as knowledge of how supported living services are structured and operate, the way councils commission services, and the impact these factors have on the costs of delivering care.
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The toolkit has been developed and tested through ARCC's delivery of cost of care exercises with over 25 councils since 2020.
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We focused on bringing a tool to the sector that can offer accurate and proportionate analyses of supported living costs that providers face, as well as provide commissioners with insights and a platform that offers a collaborative approach to deriving the costs of delivering care.
What's changed from the Homecare version?
We listened to feedback from the launch of Homecare Cost Toolkit in 2022, and incorporated additional functions to ensure users had the best possible analysis of service costs. This includes the ability to save individual cost breakdowns, analyse aggregated, whole-market costs and review and make changes to existing breakdowns.
Cost of Care Context​
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Councils have responsibility for understanding the costs providers incur in delivering care in a local area and this should be considered within the fee setting approach and process. In most cases, a local authority will set specific fee rates and will decide how to do this and what these rates are.
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In December 2021, DHSC shared information on the Market Sustainability and Fair Cost of Care Fund as part of the Local Government Financial Settlement. This has been described as the first stage of a move "towards a Fair Cost of Care". This information set out additional funding available to councils to support its programme of reform, requirements on councils in relation to cost of care and section 18(3) of the Care Act 2014 and conditions on councils to receive this funding. As set out in the grant determination, the target areas are:
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increasing fee rates paid to adult social care providers in local areas
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increasing adult social care workforce capacity and retention
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reducing adult social care waiting times
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Updated guidance in June 2023 included 18 and over supported living services within the scope of the Market Sustainability Fund, to provide insight into those fee uplifts in the current inflationary environment. Reporting metrics for these services were also included, covering the average fee rates paid in 2023-24 and provisional rates for 2024-25.